The Truth Behind Tama's Move to China

Fortunately, the Earth is a big girl and can take care of herself. We have been burning/cutting/digging/dumping for centuries as a way of life. In reality, not much has changed as far as the planet. We just gripe about it more because we have the time to sit around and get paranoid about it. Guys who have to live off the land day by day don't have that time.

You've got to be kidding me...yes, we have been burning/cutting/digging/dumping for centuries, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and that was the start of the downhill ride for planet Earth. You are misinformed or ignorant, or both.
 
Looks fairly clean.....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...24519624255765


Step outside and try some fishing in the Pearl River, breathe in the air ;(

Large banner reads: 'To be rich is Glorious'

Small banner: 'TAMA pride' :)


We do not make “cookie cutter, stamp them out, stack them on a shelf” drums (in the Japan plant). Each one is hand made with TLC. -Terry Bissette

That's right people, 'cookie cutter, stamp them out, stack them on a shelf' is reserved for Guangzhou, you $ave.
 

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That's right people, 'cookie cutter, stamp them out, stack them on a shelf' is reserved for Guangzhou, you $ave.

Nice try... Just like the factory for the half chinese DW Collectors ??

shells_lots.jpg
 
Every factory stockpiles pieces.
That's how factories work.
If you look at pics of the Sonor plant in Germany, you will see stockpiled shells.

The auto manufacturers and computer plants have bits stockpiled and ready.
 
What a Sweatshop!
Such deplorable conditions.

:)

Yes, imagine working in such a miserable place.

I used to work in a semiconductor factory in the U.S. That drum factory
in China looked much cleaner. And spacious.
 
:)

Yes, imagine working in such a miserable place.

I used to work in a semiconductor factory in the U.S. That drum factory
in China looked much cleaner. And spacious.

How were the wages? Were you able to have your own opinions? Were you locked up and abused (as in a famous current case) if you disliked your conditions?

Seriously, would you prefer to live in the USA or under a Communist dictatorship? You can always defect to North Korea. You may starve though.

How about Cuba? The drum teachers steal from their students while they are sleeping. Fancy that?
 
How about Cuba? The drum teachers steal from their students while they are sleeping. Fancy that?

Mine never did when I was in Cuba. People steal here in the USA too, all the time and on all levels. Come to think of it people steal just about anywhere on the planet. Fancy that.
PC
 
Last time I checked, producing things and selling them, is what makes people wealthy.

ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. This is what the Chinese are doing. And what the Americans stopped doing. The whole idea of a "service economy" is bunk. For the most part, wealth is a zero sum game. Someone builds something, someone else buys it, wealth is exchanged. When you start with financial finagles on top of it, someone creating derivatives based on whether A will actually buy from B, you are not creating wealth. You are skimming off of the exchange between A and B, who both end up with less. Keep this up (as the western business has been doing) and pretty soon you get to the kind of skewed distribution we have now where the guy with the best finagle (credit default swaps anyone?) ends up with all the wealth, and everyone else is in the unemployment line.

As someone who's been a manufacturing engineer for the past 35 years, labor is a small component in a product's cost. In the electronics manufacturing that I do, it's typically around 7%. Less for a very high volume highly automated product. 60-80% is raw materials. The rest is overhead including amortizing the development costs. Actual factory overhead is only a couple of percent. So even if you save 50% on the labor, the actual product cost changes only a few percent. Well within the margins bargained over in virtually every music store transaction.

Where those last few percent become critical is in feeding all the leeches too lazy to do something productive and who have inserted themselves in the middle of everything skimming off the margins.

The drive to outsource (and I've spent about a 3rd of my career working for outsource manufacturing companies) is basically a result of the tax code and with the greed of the Wall St. leeches. In the good old days captive manufacturing ruled. It was the most efficient way to do things. Someone designed what to do and then hired people to make more. With outsourcing you have all these middlemen watching each other, sitting around conference rooms jawing at each other and convincing themselves how necessary they all are in their positions as subcontract manager, commodity manager, supply base manager, supply base engineer, program manager, supplier quality, production program manager and various duplicates at the outsource production company. But if you want to be vertically integrated and have captive manufacturing (where you can develop better techniques than the next mousetrap maker), then you have to invest capital. Only Wall St. doesn't care how cost effective you are over the next 5 years. All that counts is today's numbers and getting though the quarter keeping the charade going. And that capital has to be amortized over the next 5-10 years on your taxes. And for that work force (of local people) you're only allowed to deduct the cost of the fringe benefits you pay them. Their salaries come right out of your bottom line. But if you send the work to somewhere else, all those costs come out of the cost of the product and you're not taxed on it. So we shot our own selves in the foot (or allowed clever finaglers to do it for us) and now we're paying.

Okay, so building drums is a little more labor intensive than computers. But I still bet the difference in product cost is far less than the typical 15% discount plastered on the windows of the music store. If folks were just willing to pay for a 10% discount instead of the 15%, they could be buying products made by their neighbors instead of sending all their wealth to places of questionable virtue (and I do agree with Wy on this, working with China is kind of like working with the Mafia, you never quite know what is going on and when someone is going to lower the boom on you. You know something funny's going on in the back room, but you can't get back there to find out, and you're not even sure you want to.
 
Yep. Just ask Rio Tinto reps. One can end up in a Chinese prison on a whim. A trumpt up charge is par for the course.

If one sleeps with sharks, one cannot complain about being bitten.

China is stomping around playing bully boy. And your money is suppoirting them.

Think about it.

I know, America is also a bully starting illegal wars and suich, but at least the people can speak out and vote against it. No such right under communism. Or should I say, a communist dictatorship. Is there any other kind?
 
This is just too funny .... like most people here have never even met someone from China, let alone talked to someone from China.​
But, I understand, we only know ... what we know .... and in a lot of instances ... only believe ... what we want to believe.​
About 5 years ago, I met a woman from China. She was staying with a very good drummer buddy of mine. In fact, he was best man, at my wedding. Anyhow, she had a college degree, spoke Chinese, Japanese, and English. She came to the US with $250,000, roughly. She was looking for a husband. No, not my friend. During the time she was here, she started up two businesses. Never did find "the right guy", and when her Visa, she went back to China.​
Anyhow, now my buddy, since he's got a "Chinese" hook-up, so to speak, takes a two week vacation, in China. Takes hundreds of photo's. Goes to malls, parks, museums, a lot, alone, 'cause the ladies got a job. And what does he see. A lot of Chinese people. Doing what people do. Shopping, eating, going to parks, malls, etc.....​
No soldiers, no guns, no tanks ... no one asking to see his papers.​
In his words, it was like being in Alhambra (a city not far from Pasadena, with a huge Chinese population.) People's Republic of Alhambra. See, I know what that's like. I've been to Alhambra. I've been the "only" white guy, in a Chinese market ... restaurant ... mall ...​
So, for my money, I'll drive the 10 minutes it takes, to get to Alhambra, rather than fly the 18 hours it takes, to go to China.​
 
Every factory stockpiles pieces.
That's how factories work.
--bobdadruma
Platinum Member


Not according to Terry Bissette- "We do not make 'cookie cutter, stamp them out, stack them on a shelf' drums (in the Japan plant). Each one is hand made with TLC."


Also according to Terry Bissette- "We wanted to make sure our Chinese production quality level was an exact match to the Japanese factory standards. The same exact standards we built our reputation on."


So, let’s get into the nitty gritty Artstar, would you like to explain how TAMA feels that its producing the 'exact same quality' shells in Guangzhou as it is in Japan, though Japan shells cost more?

Can't be shipping costs, Japan is closer to America than China.

Maybe the 'TLC' part?
 
This is just too funny .... like most people here have never even met someone from China, let alone talked to someone from China.​
But, I understand, we only know ... what we know .... and in a lot of instances ... only believe ... what we want to believe.​
About 5 years ago, I met a woman from China. She was staying with a very good drummer buddy of mine. In fact, he was best man, at my wedding. Anyhow, she had a college degree, spoke Chinese, Japanese, and English. She came to the US with $250,000, roughly. She was looking for a husband. No, not my friend. During the time she was here, she started up two businesses. Never did find "the right guy", and when her Visa, she went back to China.​
Anyhow, now my buddy, since he's got a "Chinese" hook-up, so to speak, takes a two week vacation, in China. Takes hundreds of photo's. Goes to malls, parks, museums, a lot, alone, 'cause the ladies got a job. And what does he see. A lot of Chinese people. Doing what people do. Shopping, eating, going to parks, malls, etc.....​
No soldiers, no guns, no tanks ... no one asking to see his papers.​
In his words, it was like being in Alhambra (a city not far from Pasadena, with a huge Chinese population.) People's Republic of Alhambra. See, I know what that's like. I've been to Alhambra. I've been the "only" white guy, in a Chinese market ... restaurant ... mall ...​
So, for my money, I'll drive the 10 minutes it takes, to get to Alhambra, rather than fly the 18 hours it takes, to go to China.​



Somehow I'm not totally convinced your buddy is all that experienced with Chinese culture along with the Chinese government and its ways harry.


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So, let’s get into the nitty gritty[/B] Artstar, would you like to explain how TAMA feels that its producing the 'exact same quality' shells in Guangzhou as it is in Japan, though Japan shells cost more?

You want an explanation on how Tama feels ?? I don't know how they feel. I will reach out to them and let you know...
 
as a member of the DW community, i am embarassed by this thread, i thought blatant personal attacks were not tolerated in this community? we are here for open conversation, but this...
 
So, let’s get into the nitty gritty Artstar, would you like to explain how TAMA feels that its producing the 'exact same quality' shells in Guangzhou as it is in Japan, though Japan shells cost more?

Can't be shipping costs, Japan is closer to America than China.

Are you for real?

Do you really not understand how the cost of labor affects the final cost of a product?

Japan and China are so close, distance to America is irrelevant. The fact is that it is much cheaper to ship something from Guangzhou to Long Beach or LA than it is to ship from Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe or any other Japanese port because of volume and competition.

It may be easy, but its also just as easy to find the quality of the product made then was just as low. Early-mid 20th century drums made in the USA offer some good examples, overall the quality wasn't that great. All the way through the 60's (high pollution rates) we can find many (more than today) examples of shoddy workmanship within the drum industry. Stress of the times, pollution etc. played a part, currently big factors in China today. Factor in workers just showing up to a job and under QC scrutiny, product will bear the effects.

I personally do not care to own drums made under such conditions, as I consider myself sensitive enough to be aware of the effects on humanity, the planet and my art.

Hate to break it to you, but it is not just drums that are made in "those" conditions, it is a huge percentage of the goods we use and/or consume on a daily basis.

You cannot post to this thread without using technology that was produced in "those" conditions.
 
Looks fairly clean.....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26877&id=124519624255765

If anyone can translate the banner on photo 36???

Both banners are in Mandarin / Putonghua. The long horizontal banner -- 净化环境,提高效率 -- translates to "Clean the Environment, Improve Efficiency."

The small vertical banner -- 流动红旗 -- literally translates to "Red Flag" or "Floating Flag." However it is actually representative of an excellence award bestowed on this particular unit / group in the factory in a given period of time, somewhat similar to employee of the month awards given out in the US. However, without context, it is impossible to know what the criteria are for this particular award.
 
Somehow I'm not totally convinced your buddy is all that experienced with Chinese culture along with the Chinese government and its ways harry.


.....................

Like I said ... we only know ... what we know .... and in a lot of instances ... only believe ... what we want to believe. In this instance ... we're just gonna have to agree .... to dis-agree.
 
Hate to break it to you, but it is not just drums that are made in "those" conditions, it is a huge percentage of the goods we use and/or consume on a daily basis.

You cannot post to this thread without using technology that was produced in "those" conditions.
This idea has been beaten to death. And you're absolutely right, that it's basically impossible to totally avoid products made under less-than-ideal (or worse) working conditions. But I think I see where he's coming from. Our instruments are a means through which we express ourselves. While it may not matter where some component of a computer, or any other mundane widget that makes up part of something we use on a day-to-day basis comes from, I think it's understandable that some people are more particular about their drums.
 
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